Data-Driven Funders: In Search of Insights...2016/04/11 · 4 Data-Driven Funders: In Search of...

Data-Driven Funders:In Search of Insights

2 Data-Driven Funders: In Search of Insights

Table of Contents

Introduction ...............................................................................................................................................3

Why Should Foundations Care About Data? .............................................................................................4

Turning Data Into Insight ...........................................................................................................................5

Spotlight on Funders ............................................................................................................................6

Barriers to Unlocking Insights .........................................................................................................9

Solutions and Lessons .......................................................................................................................12

Applying the Fundamentals ....................................................................................................................12

Bridging the Gaps ..................................................................................................................................14

Leading with Results ..............................................................................................................................17

Conclusions ............................................................................................................................................20

Supporting the Sector ............................................................................................................................20

Data Standards ......................................................................................................................................21

Sharing for Impact ..................................................................................................................................21

Resources ..............................................................................................................................................22

About Us ...................................................................................................................................................23


Introduction

This white paper is the start of a conversation. We know funders are constantly striving to make sure their funding is driving maximum impact. We hear every day that they are interested in learning from their colleagues and understanding how others are managing data effectively to achieve greater grantee outcomes. Not only that, but we believe this movement toward information-savvy funding can amplify the results of the entire sector.

We spoke to a variety of leading funders who generously shared their perspectives with us about what’s working and what isn’t. We’ll first address some common barriers to moving from compliance-based data into performance management and beyond. Then, we’ll share their inspiring solutions.

First, a few words from our leadership on the transformative philanthropy data movement that is currently happening.

Photo by Tipping Point Community, used with permission.


In our work with foundations over the past decade, we’ve

seen a shift in attitudes toward data, information, and their

impact on social change. In the past, transactional tracking

and a focus on point-in-time evaluation ruled the sector.

Foundations simply captured the details of grants, the

efficiency and effectiveness of their grants management

process, and compliance to grant deadlines. Although this

data was crucial to foundations’ day-to-day operations, it

didn’t inspire an environment of outcomes management

and continuous improvement.

As foundations have started connecting data to their

missions and the impact of their funding, it has taken on a

new role in grantmakers’ strategies. In addition to collecting a sea of individual data points,

foundations have begun to provide staff with information. Information guides decision-makers in

their organizations, including grants managers, evaluation directors, and leadership, in making

decisions that make sense for the sector and drive mission-aligned impact. In today’s philanthropy,

foundations seek to understand the extent of the change they are making through their funding and

how they can improve each step of the way.

At the same time, the social sector is increasingly coming to agreement that change can’t be made

in individual silos. Foundations, nonprofits, government agencies, and businesses are working

collaboratively to address the biggest societal challenges of poverty, inequality, and more.

Information is vital in these initiatives to bring these diverse constituents together and put forward

the most effective approaches.

These changes in the social sector portend a new era of sophistication for foundations. As

philanthropic organizations have moved from tracking data to managing organizational outcomes,

the sheer amount of data has grown and tools they use have multiplied. Foundations are now

considering how they collect data across their network, grantees, and the sector, and

simultaneously, how they build the systems to turn that data into actionable information and

Why Should Foundations Care About Data?Rem Hoffmann, Exponent Partners CEO and Founder


knowledge. For the most advanced organizations, this can mean systems that serve whole

organizations and provide grants management, knowledge management, business intelligence,

and more. Universally though, all foundations are in some way evolving to use information to make

decisions to achieve greater impact. Of course, this new future is unevenly distributed, and

organizations have made strides in different areas. We hope this white paper will provide a diverse

set of voices that help you understand the lessons and gather best practices no matter where you

are on the spectrum of using information to drive your mission.

Turning Data Into Insight

Foundations are decision-making machines. Their

essential function is to make good decisions about which

organizations to fund and good decisions about how

to fund them. And we all know that good decisions are

enabled, if not guaranteed, by good information. So it

follows that the flow of good information is central to the

very identity of foundations. And many—though not all—

foundations live up to that responsibility. They make sure

they have the information they need to make good

decisions—so that their resources can be wisely

deployed for a better world.

But what information? In general, I think there are five kinds that are most relevant: (1) information

about the issue itself (what is the literacy rate in Chicago?); (2) information about what works (what

are the most effective ways to increase adult literacy rates?); (3) information about organizations

(what are the organizations working on adult literacy in Chicago?); (4) information on resources

(which foundations are funding work on adult literacy in Chicago?); and (5) information from

stakeholders (what do the participants in adult literacy programs think about those programs?).

Information is meant to inform, not decide. We still have to rely on foundation staff’s experience,

intuition, and relationships. It is both/and, not either/or. And as we bring all of this together, we

think we can see a philanthropic ecosystem defined not just by good decisions but by

decision-making that gets better and better with time.

Jacob Harold, GuideStar President and Chief Executive Officer


Spotlight on Funders

We spoke with senior directors and veteran grantmakers at leading foundations on their challenges, approaches, and common pitfalls in the field. Here is a brief introduction to each funder’s work.

ANGIE CHEN, DIRECTOR

(FORMERLY PROGRAM OFFICER AT THREE BAY AREA FOUNDATIONS)

BLUE SKY FUNDERS FORUM

Blue Sky Funders Forum is a network that helps members learn, connect, and grow philanthropy that supports

the many benefits of environmental literacy and a stronger connection to nature. Blue Sky supports learning by

curating knowledge about effective programs and approaches and sharing resources to facilitate strategic

grantmaking.

KELLY MARTIN, SENIOR GRANTS MANAGER JESSICA HICKOK, GRANTS MANAGER

JAMES IRVINE FOUNDATION

The James Irvine Foundation is a philanthropic nonprofit organization established to benefit the people of

California. The Foundation is focused on expanding economic and political opportunity for California families and

young adults who are working but struggling with poverty.


ROBIN HOOD FOUNDATION

GREG KIESER, TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY

Robin Hood is New York’s largest poverty-fighting organization, and since 1988 has focused on finding, funding,

and creating programs and schools that generate meaningful results for families in New York’s poorest

neighborhoods. Since its founding, Robin Hood has raised more than $1.95 billion in dollars, goods, and services

to provide hundreds of the most effective soup kitchens, homeless shelters, schools, job-training programs, and

other vital services that give New York’s neediest citizens the tools they need to build better lives. The

organization applies rigorous metrics to evaluate program effectiveness. These metrics identify factors that make

poverty-fighting grants succeed or fail. Robin Hood grants deliver on average a 12:1 return on every dollar

invested, so a $1,000 donation triggers a $12,000 boost to the living standards of struggling New Yorkers.

Tipping Point Community is a grantmaking organization that fights poverty in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tipping

Point screens nonprofits rigorously to find, fund, and partner with the most promising groups connecting Bay

Area individuals and families to the opportunities needed to achieve self-sufficiency. Tipping Point provides this

management assistance through the strategic partnerships it builds with private sector corporations and nonprofit

organizations. Beyond dollars, Tipping Point provides grantees the communications, technical and management

assistance they need to grow and increase their impact. 100% of every dollar donated goes out the door.

TIPPING POINT COMMUNITY

NICK AREVALO, SENIOR PROGRAM OFFICER,

IMPACT AND LEARNING

ASHLEY SIGMON, SENIOR ASSOCIATE,

IMPACT AND LEARNING


Photo by Tipping Point Community, used with permission.

BERNADETTE SANGALANG, PROGRAM OFFICER

DAVID AND LUCILE PACKARD FOUNDATION

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation is a private family foundation created in 1964 by David Packard and his

wife, Lucile Salter Packard. The foundation’s goals, through the use of grants, are to improve the lives of children,

enable creative pursuit of science, advance reproductive health, and conserve and restore earth’s natural

systems.


Barriers to Unlocking Insights

There is a wide spectrum of sophistication in current grantmaking practices when it comes to leveraging information and identifying the best and most efficient sources of data. When it comes to supporting grantees and truly unlocking their outcomes, funders can run up against both technological and human barriers. Initially, issues may be ones of capacity and institutionalized ways of doing things that are difficult to change.

We present some common challenges here to help you recognize where you might encounter roadblocks to unlocking insights and feel in good company with others who are striving for more!

Lack of Capacity or Expertise

LACK OF STAFF BANDWIDTH

Angie Chen, who has worked as a program officer at three different foundations, and currently directs a funder

network, has had her fair share of bandwidth issues. She recalls frequently having time only to manage relationships

with grantees, not collect and convert data to information. “In a strategy development phase, I might have had a

lot of time to focus on research,” says Chen. “Once the implementation of that strategy happened, I was managing

relationships with up to 60 organizations who all have dynamic challenges. You kind of lose the ability to do anything

besides keep your head up!”

LACK OF DATA EXPERTISE

Chen also notes that in her experience, those working in programs tend to hail from a content or field background,

rather than a data or evaluation one. “There’s usually less emphasis on quantitative skills and more on knowing the

field and partnering with it,” says Chen.

Institutionalized Processes

INFORMATION LOCKED AWAY IN SPREADSHEETS AND PAPER FILES

Multiple funders mentioned the challenge of accessing grantee forms and surveys once they were in a siloed

spreadsheet, email attachment, or paper files.

Chen notes that many foundations may have uniform application or reporting processes, which dictate a certain

format that may not be conducive to later analysis: “The data was often filed in Word documents or files on a server

and not looked at comprehensively. Or sometimes even paper files. On top of that, a lot of the knowledge lives in the


head of an individual program officer.”

Ashley Sigmon at Tipping Point Community recalls this process from their

earlier days: “The organizational needs survey is something we send out to

grantees once a year. For many years, it took the form of an Excel

spreadsheet that grantees filled out, and we would discuss at the renewal

meeting. But it wasn’t ever looked at again. Someone on partnerships, who

was looking to determine what support beyond the grant itself we should

provide for the year, would have to open every single Excel doc individually!”

RIGID REPORTING REQUIREMENTS

Reporting requirements are often developed out of the best of intentions to

make sure a foundation is doing its due diligence. However, they may limit

staff’s ability to capture new information that gets at the root of impact. “In

most of my foundation experiences, there was one set of proposal questions

you asked prospective grantees, and one set during the reporting process

post-grant,” says Chen. “This was because of standard proposal and

reporting guidelines, and the need to do standard write-ups and filing for the

board or your director. But unfortunately those questions didn’t always tell

you much about the success of a specific project. They were too

standardized, especially when you’re working on wide-ranging grants, from a

multi-million dollar research grant to a small, local programmatic grant.”

These practices may lead to one-size-fits-all applications and forms that

collect irrelevant data, and program officers may be forced to apply

ad-hoc solutions to collect information they would use more often. “As one

of multiple program officers working in different program areas, I didn’t have

much power to change the questions,” Chen explained. “Instead I ended

up increasing the burden on grantees, by having our external evaluators ask

additional questions with surveys or interviews.”

Departmental Silos

SILOED PROGRAM AND EVALUATION DEPARTMENTS

Program and evaluation are often different departments. When these two

groups aren’t aligned or collaborative, the data suffers.

“When learning or evaluation is a separate department, we as program staff

don’t always remember to rely on data to inform our work,” Chen observes.

“If you’re an expert on, say, youth development, and you’re working with

Unfortunately

[standard] questions didn’t

always tell you much

about the success of a

specific project. They were

too standardized,

especially when you’re

working on wide-ranging

grants...

—Angie Chen, Blue Sky

Funders Forum


organizations that do youth development, you may even feel like you just know who the foundation should support,

and you don’t necessarily need external validation for that.”

Missing Data

LACK OF OR INACCESSIBLE EXTERNAL QUANTITATIVE DATA

Even if all the above challenges are addressed, foundations can run into issues with finding the comparative

quantitative data they need. Nick Arevalo of Tipping Point notes, “We pull the data from everywhere. It’s one of the

trickiest parts of the sector. One of the places where it’s strongest, but you have to dig, is education. When it comes

to college, the National Student Clearinghouse centralizes some good information. One of the places where it’s the

most difficult is housing, because the government is a central provider of grants to support housing programs. They

don’t have a central data system to track which programs are effective. It’s often a hodgepodge of data sources that

we have to swim through to find appropriate counterfactuals for our work.”

Alternately, the desired external data may be available, but be costly or otherwise challenging to navigate. Bernadette

Sangalang of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation notes, “My colleagues on our children’s health program team,

which works to make sure children have access to health insurance, collect a lot of external data annually on health

care coverage to help their grantees in their work. We always wish we had access to more longitudinal data about

how children are doing over time. There are various holders of data like the Department of Education, the Department

of Health, and large state systems. It’s very expensive to collect and there are also privacy issues, so if you’re trying to

get a sense of the trajectories of a cohort of children, it’s very difficult.”

Lack of Precedent for Measuring Complex Issues

CHALLENGE CONSTRUCTING APPROPRIATE MEASUREMENTS FOR DIVERSE ISSUE AREAS

One of the most difficult challenges all funders face is how to determine measurements for issue areas and projects

that are often wide-ranging both in subject matter and scope. This problem is even more acute as foundations are

approaching collective impact and collaborative initiatives with nonprofits and government agencies. This type of

measurement may be nearly unprecedented in the sector, leading to very few examples that funders can follow. Many

grants are more difficult to define quantitatively, such as supporting research in a field, building capacity for an

organization, or fostering collaboration. They may deal with a direct audience or a complex system where variables

are not easy to track. Or they may have very long time scales that make it prohibitively difficult to collect data.

We pull the [external] data from everywhere. It’s one of the trickiest parts of the sector. [...]

One of the places where it’s the most difficult is housing. [The government doesn’t] have a

central data system to track which programs are effective.

—Nick Arevalo, Tipping Point Community


Solutions and Lessons

Despite working in a sometimes challenging landscape, funders have been rising to the occasion. If you are looking to level up in your reporting, performance management and outcomes management, read on to learn how these funders have solved (or advised solving) key issues, improved grantee interactions, and begun to measure results comprehensively.

Applying the Fundamentals

DEVELOP STRONG LOGIC MODELS AND THEORIES OF CHANGE FOR YOUR STRATEGY

Before revamping processes, funders need to understand what exactly they want to accomplish within their program

areas and the areas they want to impact. Chen worked for a foundation that had very rigorous standards for

developing each grantmaking strategy.

“Our evaluation team developed a very thorough process for getting grantmaking strategies for new areas of

investment approved. Looking back, I think it was brilliant,” she says. “The five-step process took a full year. It

required us to create a logic model, theory of change, and an evaluation plan for the strategy before we started

making grants. We also needed to create an advisory committee of leaders in the field, experts who we would check

in with as we were going through the process. So we had to design something that made sense for the types of

organizations or the field we were working with. The combination of designing the evaluation plan and gaining input

from potential beneficiaries and thought leaders is key to actually getting the data you want within the grantmaking

process.”

DEFINE KEY METRICS FOR GRANTEE RESULTS

Setting well-defined metrics for how to measure grantee outcomes can be a game-changer for foundations. It has

ripple effects across all aspects of grantmaking, from determining whom to fund to defining what success looks like

long-term. Robin Hood Foundation and Tipping Point Community shared their robust metrics systems with us.

Robin Hood Foundation uses nearly 200 equations to guide its cost-benefit metrics. Greg Kieser explains: “For

example, if we invest a given amount in a job training program, we’ll look to see how many people graduate from

that program and keep their new job for at least one year. Research says that the wage boost for those people will

last five years or more. We calculate cost-benefit ratios for this gain and for all other categories, from high school

graduation to a boost in health outcomes for HIV+ individuals. Our investments are all based on research. We seek to

estimate the impact an investment will have on the well-being of individuals or their economic well-being, knowing


that those things are key to lifting people out of poverty.”

Kieser also observes that foundations may also benefit from standardizing

relevant data metrics. “The more you can find ways to standardize metrics

across overlapping issue areas, the more you can see total agency impact,”

he notes. “You’re more likely to learn something that you didn’t know. You’ll

be able to run reports and analysis that would otherwise be difficult even

with good technology in place.”

Tipping Point Community looks for alignment with the key outcomes they

track, which they term “core metrics.” “In essence, we ask: Does an orga-

nization produce outcomes that are aligned with measurable paths out of

poverty for the individuals they serve?” Arevalo explains. “In education, we

have benchmarks like third grade reading and math proficiency, eighth grade

reading and math proficiency, high school graduation, college enrollment,

and college persistence. When we have a conversation with a group, we

ask: ‘Do you measure your clients’ progress toward these outcomes? What

does it look like?’”

He adds, “We look for an organization’s desire to ask themselves tough

questions about how they’re performing, if they’re serving the right target

populations, and if program improvements could be made to help more

people reach key outcomes.”

TRACK YOUR DATA IN A FLEXIBLE SYSTEM

Having a flexible technology solution in which to store many kinds of data

has proved useful for many foundations. The benefits are numerous.

“With Salesforce, we get more bang for our buck in terms of staff time,” Kelly

Martin of the James Irvine Foundation notes. “We’re more efficient. Our

program staff are also better informed about their own grants. With our

previous legacy system, they had no idea. If they wanted information about a

body of grants or a body of work, they had to go ask someone to look it up

for them and report on it. The new system has made their jobs easier, and

they have more access to information at their fingertips.”

Tipping Point uses their solution to track many kinds of grantee interactions,

which allows them to see a 360-degree view of their support and answer

important questions. “When a grantee calls the program officer and says this

just happened, or this person left, or they have a grant that they’re thinking

about pursuing, or they have this new need, it’s all stored in Salesforce,”

We look for an

organization’s desire to

ask themselves tough

questions about how

they’re performing, if

they’re serving the right

target populations, and if

program improvements

could be made to help

more people reach key

outcomes.

—Nick Arevalo, Tipping Point

Community


Sigmon says. “We can get the full picture of all the support, and be able to answer: ‘Are we providing the right

support? Do we have the right providers? Are there needs that come up every year that we’re not meeting? Are we

not meeting them because we don’t have the providers, or because we don’t think they’re top-level needs? What’s

going on with this grantee that hasn’t met a goal year over year over year, and how do we better support them?’

We’ve had that information anecdotally, but to be able to see it all in one place, to detect patterns, is game-changing

for us.”

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation uses its grants management solution to inform its long-term strategy.

“We often look at what we are learning from grantees to help inform our grantmaking and strategy going forward,”

Sangalang says. “It’s a good tool to reflect with and develop the practice of reviewing our outcomes. We use these

insights both in conversation with grantees for the next proposal, and in our annual year in review with our teams,

trustees, and executive team.”

Technology also provides the ability to see the previously invisible. Kieser observes, “For both Robin Hood Foundation

and our grantees, technology enables us to slice and dice data, and to look for correlations and for situations where

we might be able to make a change and impact outcomes. The more that we do that, the better results we see

because of it.”

POSITION GRANTS MANAGERS TO BE DATA EXPERTS

To overcome some of the expertise barriers mentioned earlier, some foundations may need to encourage new

perspectives on traditional roles. Some grants managers noted that it was important to empower their roles as data

stewards. “It used to be that we were seen as the back office: ‘You just do policies and compliance, you don’t

analyze data.’ That’s not true... we actually know the data better than anyone else. Encourage that shift,” says

Jessica Hickok of the James Irvine Foundation.

Bridging the Gaps

FACILITATE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN PROGRAMS AND EVALUATION

As a direct solution to the disconnect mentioned above between programs and evaluations, some funders note that

greater co-creation of new models and processes would be beneficial, and would provide the best of both fields’

experience. As well, if each were introduced more to the other’s work, they could more easily find opportunities to

For both Robin Hood Foundation and our grantees, technology enables us to slice and

dice data, and to look for correlations and for situations where we might be able to make a

change and impact outcomes. The more that we do that, the better results we see

because of it.

— Greg Kieser, Robin Hood Foundation


help each other.

“If at the outset of every grantmaking program strategy, there were program officer staff who were foundation experts

in the area co-designing the processes with evaluators, and working with some of the leaders who would be

receiving grants, that would probably yield the most information,” Chen says.

ALIGN YOUR ORGANIZATION AROUND STRATEGY

Successful foundations are thinking broadly about how each part of the organization—from programs to grants

administration to evaluation—is aligned to their overall strategy in the data they are collecting. Shifting strategy can

require rethinking the way all departments interact. This rethinking allows funders to move away from the barrier of

inflexible reporting.

The James Irvine Foundation provides a useful look at what

shifting strategy may involve. “Our president announced a few

months ago that we’re shifting our focus to a new strategy

framework. We as grants administration are re-architecting our

system to fit with our new focus. We’re moving from a three

siloed program area structure to a more initiative-based structure.

We’re re-architecting Salesforce to be much more flexible and

nimble as different teams form and dissolve.” Indeed each part of

the organization—program, grants administration, and evaluation

—has changed its processes and the data it collects to align with

this new strategy.

Tipping Point Community also notes the importance of tying

together how an overall strategy will be implemented on a tactical

or process level. “With our core metrics strategy in place, we’re

doing a lot of process improvement right now. Once you get the

process right, you can actually start to analyze and use the data

that you’re gathering in a better way,” Sigmon says.

REDUCE DATA BURDENS ON GRANTEES

Funders can increase efficiency by being deliberate about the data they are collecting from grantees and using it well.

“If you’re going to ask for the data, make sure you know what you’re using it for,” Arevalo advises. “We want to be

sure that when we’re asking grantees to go work with a client, input the data, collect, analyze, and give it back to us,

that we’re going to utilize that information. We understand it’s a heavy lift and that they have other things they could

be doing with that precious time. It’s also critical to articulate your goal back to the grantee, so they know it’s not just

going to sit there after all the work. With the structure we have in place now, we’re having conversations based on

grantee data on a weekly basis.”

Photo by Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment, used with permission.


Sangalang agrees, “You’re one of several funders for each of these grantees. Be really thoughtful about your use of

the data and sharing what you’re learning back to the grantee, so it’s not just one-way communication. A practice

that we try to abide by is sharing key insights about how other grantees might be struggling with the same issues or

making progress. Grantees can learn from those lessons and adapt them to their context.”

Astute tool usage can also ease grantee sharing. Funders can begin to overcome capacity issues by building and

working with tools that grantees can use to input their data directly. This approach centralizes key information digitally

and eliminates duplicative manual entry. For example, Tipping Point Community moved their organizational needs

survey from Excel to SurveyMonkey, then to FormAssembly, which integrated with their platform. Grantees can save

and return the form later while also helping Tipping Point capture the data more efficiently. Tipping Point also uses a

data portal on the Salesforce platform to gather additional information from their grantees.

“We’re capturing tons of data to support relationships with our grantees. We want not only to understand what

grantee programs are most effective, but also how we can optimize the support we provide and which factors drive

groups to get better outcomes,” Arevalo says. “Groups are able to enter their client outcomes directly into our data

system. Annually, we ask the whole portfolio to input data through this platform, then we scrub that data and start

conversations with each grantee about what we’re seeing.”

MANAGE DATA COLLECTION TIMING

Foundations should also consider that certain data is especially important at

specific points in a timeline, such as milestones in a grantee relationship.

“For some clusters of our work, we’ve shifted to having interim reports so we

can have conversations several months prior to grant renewal, rather than

finding out with a year-end report,” says Sangalang. “You want the data to

come in at an appropriate time to help inform the work going forward.”

USE DATA TO UNDERSTAND AREAS OF NEED

An advanced way to use grantee data is to analyze it for opportunities to

support grantees better and to tweak this support. This ability is particularly

valuable for foundations that offer long-term support or are in longer

relationships with grantees. Grantees’ challenge areas can illuminate the places where funders can provide greater

assistance.

“We’re consistently using the data to find out where we can provide more system support to an organization,”

Arevalo says. “We look at pain points and areas of potential improvement where we can bring additional resources.

Whether that means drawing upon the knowledge of our team, engaging a pro bono partner, or hiring a consultant

who is an expert in the field, we use data to help us pinpoint the exact area of grantee infrastructure that needs

support. Data collection itself is another common challenge: if a grantee has trouble with client follow-up, for

example, that’s an opportunity for us to engage more deeply.”


Leading with Results

FOCUS ON LONG-TERM OUTCOMES STRUCTURE

As a foundation moves towards outcomes management and more sophisticated metrics, it may begin to explore the

measurement of a longer timescale of impact. Tipping Point Community has recently shifted to a powerful strategy for

collecting outcomes data over time:

“If a group works with a client in fiscal year 2015, we understand that they won’t necessarily know if that client has

obtained that long-term outcome that they’re driving towards, even if that client is out of program. Many of the

outcomes we care about take a really long time to attain,” Arevalo notes. “One group in our portfolio helps low-

income first-generation college students. The program has to wait six years to see if a student actually graduates

from high school and college, and thus if the organization hits their overall long-term outcome. So we built our

reporting structure to focus on cohorts. We ask grantees to tell us how many clients started in the program that year,

how many continued on in the program, how many completed the program.

“Then, as the years go on, we ask them to give us an annual update on how their older cohorts are performing in

college. Yes, it will take six years to get to that college graduation number, but in the meantime we’re getting valuable

data from the group, in terms of what persistence looks like, what enrollment looks like, what program completions

look like. They can also see places where they as an organization can improve, and hopefully, for future cohorts,

perform better on those outcomes and those benchmarks. This is a major change from how we thought about things

in the past. We believe it stands out among our peers, in terms of how we’re thinking about long-term outcomes. We

have made a commitment to long-term relationships with these groups, so we allow ourselves some time to be able

to capture those outcomes.”

PRIORITIZE EXTERNAL DATA

Foundations can use external data in numerous ways, from planning new investment areas to contrasting grantee

results. This data can come from many sources and funders must be creative and persistent when hunting it down,

as there are rarely centralized stores of knowledge in their issue areas. However, the persistence often pays off in

greater understanding and even discovery of more advanced approaches.

The James Irvine Foundation researches such data as poverty rates and philanthropic dollars per capita. “We look

at data about grantmaking in different regions, and we’re using external data about poverty rates across our state to

inform some of our work. We’ve been working with Monitor Institute to gather this. Down the road, we’re hoping to

We built our reporting structure to focus on cohorts. […] It will take six years to get to that

college graduation number, but in the meantime we’re getting valuable data…



take some of their data sources and our grantmaking data and couple those two to make informed decisions,” Martin

remarks.

Tipping Point Community seeks out external data to understand grantee outcomes better, among other things. “We

understand that our groups aren’t working in a vacuum, and that the outcomes they’re attaining are often really tough

to attain for the target populations they work with,” Arevalo says. “For a first-generation low-income college group,

we know that looking at our grantees’ enrollment or persistence or graduation rates is not enough. You have to put it

against counterfactuals. We look at

general graduation rates, rates for

similar populations (e.g. first-

generation or Pell Grant recipients),

and rates for low-income students

that aren’t necessarily first-

generation. We try to figure out

how our groups perform at this

stage against those figures, so we

can help them both articulate the

impact they’re having and figure

out what benchmarks they ought to

strive toward.”

Robin Hood Foundation places a

high priority on this overall research

and has a dedicated team member for this aim. “We have a Ph.D. on staff whose full-time job is to connect our

program officers to new research and new industry standards for data, to use them and to roll them into the work we

are doing,” Kieser says.

TRADE DATA LESSONS WITH THE FIELD

Funders are realizing the importance of sharing their insights with the sector. “We share our lessons learned with

other grantmakers in various ways,” Sangalang notes. “We participate in conferences like Grantmakers for Education

and Grantmakers in Health, and share external versions of our reports and progress to the field through our network

of partners and similar funders. We also host evaluation reports on our website under the section ‘What We’re

Learning.’ I think our foundation has evolved. We’re building a practice of really sharing what we’re learning from our

data and being more transparent about how we do our work, what we’ve learned that works, and what’s been

challenging.”

CROSS-COMPARE YOUR GRANTEES

One of the benefits for foundations using a data solution to centralize information is that they can begin to look at

higher-level views of how they are performing. If they are gathering grantee data, they will potentially be able to unlock

interesting trends across organizations and even across program areas.

Photo by The Nellie Mae Education Foundation, used with permission.


Photo by Give2Asia, used with permission.

“We have a new data portal where our organizations are able to input their data,” Sigmon says. “Every organization

has its own login into a Salesforce community. They can input data from the last five years. It locks at some point,

at the cutoff, and that automatically transfers into our database. We’re able to cross-compare our portfolio. It’s been

huge. We can focus on asking the right questions about data and impact.”

PREDICT THE SUPPORT YOUR GRANTEES NEED

The road from data compliance to data insight can be long and sometimes daunting, and it can be motivational to

hear the aspirational goals that some foundations are working toward. Tipping Point hopes to design a predictive

system that will help it spot nuanced trends within the data

that may anticipate grantee needs before they know they

have them.

“We’ve tracked basic interactions with our grantees and

our grantmaking process,” Sigmon says, “Right now, we’re

in the midst of working to fully track the ways we support

our grantees beyond the dollars alone, including the

support our partners provide.

“Once we get that data into the system, we will be able

to compare grant amounts, impact numbers that the

organizations are reporting, internal measurements we

call performance scales, organizational needs surveys (which capture grantee-identified needs), the diverse types of

non-monetary support we provide, and grantees’ annual goals. We’ll see clearly if grantees are moving forward or

the support is not working. And we’ll be able to analyze and understand better what sequence we should be using in

how we support organizations.

“That’s the big project right now. We have plans after that to do a more advanced analytics system where we can

start to code support and say to a grantee at a particular point in their experience: ‘Here are some suggested ideas.’

“It will all be science, obviously!” she laughs.

We’re building a practice of really sharing what we’re learning about our data and being

more transparent about how we do our work…

—Bernadette Sangalang, David and Lucile Packard Foundation


Conclusions

The lessons shared by these funders can be seen as stepping stones toward true outcomes management. More broadly, these funders also note that the picture can’t be complete if grantmakers act in isolation. The philanthropy sector must begin to collectively address both capacity and technology issues for their grantees as well as more robust standards for the information being captured. These actions will help ensure a flow of insights among and ultimately wisdom for grantmakers, nonprofits, and beyond.

Supporting the SectorA critical step in moving toward a more fully informed,

effective nonprofit sector is to support organizations by

funding technology and better data practices for them to

increase their capacity and move toward strategic objec-

tives. Funders have seen great results for their grantees.

“We support grantees in using data to inform their work,”

Sangalang says. “We’ve set aside a small pool of funds to

help our grantees with evaluation needs and capacity

building. Each of them is different in terms of their capacity

to use, collect, and store data. We have our outside

evaluator work with them on varied projects, even to be

better at evaluative thinking. One of our grantee

collaboratives wanted to start from the very beginning, getting help articulating their theory of change. After they did

that, they could identify what outcomes they were trying to work toward. Finally, they asked our evaluators to help

them think about indicators they should be tracking.”

Kieser oversees technology-related projects and grants for Robin Hood Foundation. He works with grantees to

understand how technology could help them do their work better and which vendors might be most useful. Then he

recommends grants to assist with up to 75 percent of the project costs, from websites to databases to apps for

communicating with clients.

“The lion’s share of our funded technology projects have to do with how grantees work with data, for example,

moving from Excel to a new database,” Kieser says. “We evaluate the impact of the grant based on how it’s going to

Photo by Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment, used with permission.


help them better serve their clients. I’ll go through the process of determining whether a database will help them be

more efficient, help them better recruit clients, help them place clients in jobs, and so on. I’ll then factor in the

expected value of those benefits based on relevant research and calculate a cost-benefit ratio. We’ve helped a lot of

workforce development groups in making better use of data for decision making. Having a relational database

allows them to do analysis and run reports practically, whereas Excel’s process is time-prohibitive. We can’t take 100

percent credit if there’s a boost in a program outcomes because of a new technology, but we contact them later on

to see if they got the expected benefit, and calculate a general metric of the impact they and we are getting.”

Tipping Point Community also has an strong belief in the power of supporting their grantees this way. “It’s no-brainer

to fund technology for grantees if you’re focused on outcomes,” Arevalo notes. “If we ask groups to use general

operating support funding for a database, we are taking away from the inherent flexibility that general operating

support is intended to offer them! We see technology as an essential tool for direct service organizations’ ability to

work better, smarter, and more efficiently in helping people to get out of poverty. If an additional technology grant and

technical assistance on top of the general operating support will cut down the time it takes an organization to get the

system it needs, we’re willing to make that investment.”

Data StandardsAs the philanthropy sector moves toward collective work, the topics of collaborating smoothly and establishing

standards become more and more important. “There’s room to push for collaborative coding, and using a standard

taxonomy,” Hickok observes. “It would be a good thing.”

Jacob Harold, CEO of GuideStar, expands on this need: “Our shared challenge is to weave together all of these

different types of information in a way that is useful and easy to navigate. To make that happen, we need some basic

data standards. It turns out that things like unique identifiers (like the BRIDGE number) and taxonomies (like the

Philanthropy Classification System) can help us organize the information that foundations need. That’s why

GuideStar and our partners are investing in these standards.”

Sharing for ImpactCollective impact and collaborative efforts are not only trends but crucial approaches to addressing today’s complex,

interconnected social issues. As Rem Hoffmann, CEO of Exponent Partners, explains, “It’s easy for us to see that

societal problems are interconnected on a human level. Students’ home lives obviously impact their success or failure

in education, and we instinctively know their education can lead to poverty or success in their career path.

Accordingly, networks of organizations are needed to solve these interrelated, entrenched societal issues. These

We see technology as an essential tool for direct service organizations’ ability to work

better, smarter, and more efficiently in helping people to get out of poverty.



Resources: OrganizationsExponent Partners: www.exponentpartners.com; www.exponentpartners.com/philanthropy-foundation

GuideStar: www.guidestar.org; www.trust.guidestar.org

Algorhythm: https://algorhythm.io

The Center for Effective Philanthropy: www.effectivephilanthropy.org/research/publications

Grantmakers For Effective Organizations: www.geofunders.org/about

Leap of Reason (The Perfomance Imperative Campaign): www.leapofreason.org/performance-imperative

Recommended Literature“On the Money: The Key Financial Challenges Facing Nonprofits Today - and How Grantmakers Can Help”, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations: http://www.geofunders.org/resource-library/support-nonprofit-resilience/record/a0660000004dLaTAAU

Leap of Reason, Mario Morino: www.leapofreason.org/get-the-books/

Working Hard —and Working Well, Dr. David E.K. Hunter: www.leapofreason.org/get-the-books/

The Standards: Evaluation and Learning by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation: www.packard.org/about-the-foundation/how-we-operate/evaluation/the-standards

Feedback

Agree? Disagree? Have other lessons to share? We would love to hear your thoughts. Please contact us at [email protected].

networks create a ‘system of service.’ We can solve one narrow slice of a problem for a person with a service, but

systems are needed to help a person holistically and longitudinally from cradle to career. They require strong

infrastructure and the capacity to capture, manage, and share information across changemakers. The ability to share

information really catalyzes these systems of service and ensures that the interventions that work rise to the top.

“Foundations, with their ability to reach across organizations and their close connections with each other, sit at a

crucial nexus to further these systems. The more we collect data and share the information it provides, within and

across organizations, the more the social sector can leverage this rich resource to solve problems and make

progress.”


About Us

Exponent PartnersExponent Partners builds technology for foundations to understand your organizational and grantee results and lead

change by directing funding to better programs and services. Our solutions help you manage people, processes,

and outcomes on the Salesforce platform. Through our technology, foundations manage grants, accept online grant

applications, organize constituent data, integrate with HR and accounting systems, manage documents, employ

advanced analytics, and more. As a B Corp and a California Benefit Corporation, we pursue our mission to make the

social sector more effective by delivering insights that create impact.

GuideStarGuideStar, www.guidestar.org, is the world’s largest source of nonprofit information, connecting people and

organizations with data on 2.4 million nonprofits. Each year, more than 7 million people, including individual donors,

nonprofit leaders, grantmakers, government officials, academic researchers, and the media, use GuideStar data to

make intelligent decisions about the social sector. GuideStar Nonprofit Profiles are populated with information from

the IRS, directly from nonprofits, and via other partners in the nonprofit sector. In addition, users see GuideStar data

on more than 160 philanthropic websites and applications. GuideStar is itself a 501(c)(3) public charity.

To talk with us about how you can gain more insights from your data, contact us: www.exponentpartners.com / 800.918.2917 / [email protected]

Want to find out more about how GuideStar’s data can help you find, verify, and evaluate

nonprofits? Support your website, service or application? Or access and analyze vast

amounts of nonprofit data?

Learn more about GuideStar’s products and services here:

http://learn.guidestar.org/guidestar-products

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